Three of the best – digital health events at the Royal Society of Medicine for 2016

The Royal Society of Medicine has two unbeatable benefits to offer conference attendees: virtually every world expert is keen to present there and, because it is a medical education charity, charges are heavily subsidised. As a result you get the most bang for your buck of any independent digital health event, anywhere!

And just now the offer is even more attractive as if you book for all three in the next 14 days (ie by 12th February) the RSM will give you a 10% discount on all three!

On February 25th, the RSM is holding their first 2016 conference: Recent developments in digital health. This is the fourth time they have run this popular event which aims to update attendees about particularly important new digital heath advances. For me the highlight will be Chris Elliott of Leman Micro who plans to demonstrate working smartphones that can measure all the key vital signs apart from weight without any peripheral – that includes systolic & diastolic blood pressure, as well as one-lead ECG, pulse, respiration rate and temperature. When these devices are widely available, they will dramatically affect health care delivery worldwide – particularly self-care – dramatically. See it first at the RSM!

I’d also highlight speakers such as Beverley Bryant, Director of Digital Technology NHS England, Mustafa Suleyman, Head of Applied Artificial Intelligence at Google DeepMind (who’ll hopefully tell us a bit about introducing deep learning in to Babylon), Prof Tony Young, National Clinical Director for Innovation, NHS England and Dr Ameet Bakhai, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. It’s going to be a brilliant day!

On April 7th the RSM is holding Medical apps: mainstreaming innovation, also in its fourth year. Last year the election caused last minute cancellations by both NICE & the MHRA, who are making up for that with two high-level presentations. Among a panoply of other excellent speakers, I’m personally looking forward especially to Andy Blackwell & Prof Chris Hollis talking about mental health apps as, unlike most physical ailments, this is an area where the app can help treat as well as help diagnose, monitor and encourage self-care. Vitally important to everyone involved with digital health will be digital health lawyer Julian Hitchcock on the huge changes coming up in 2016 with both the new medical devices and the general data protection regulations coming into force – his session is extra-long as a result. As this editor has a small involvement with Humetrix Inc on the US West Coast, I have also managed to persuade their CEO, Dr Bettina Experton to pop over to tell us about the medical apps scene there. And there are many more great speakers. It should be another excellent session.

On May 19th the RSM, jointly with the IET, is holding the Future of medicine; the role of doctors in 2025, in its second year. It will be opened by George Freeman, Minister for Life Sciences, as the first of a really outstanding line-up of international speakers including Dr Ruchi Dass, the renowned public health expert from India, Sir John Savill, Chief Executive at the Medical Research Council, Dr Adam Hill, Medical Director McLaren, Prof David Thwaites, Director of the Institute of Medical Physics University of Sydney, Tom Wright, Chief Executive of Age UK, Dr Jack Kriendler, Australia, and many more.

The objective of this conference is to explore just how far the delivery of health and care has been improved by the availability of new technology, and what the latest predictions are by those working in the field of how medicine will really be practised in nine years’ time. It is aimed primarily at senior executives in the health and care world whose decisions today will hasten – or hinder – the arrival of improved technology-enabled care.

All three events last year sold out so this year the RSM has doubled the auditoria sizes. Nevertheless they are still hopeful of sellout audiences so please book early to reserve your place! If you want the 10% discount for booking all three, by February 12th, please contact Charlotte Cordrey at telemedicine@rsm.ac.uk or 020 7290 3935.

Our definitions

Telehealth and Telecare Aware posts pointers to a broad range of news items. Authors of those items often use terms 'telecare' and telehealth' in inventive and idiosyncratic ways. Telecare Aware's editors can generally live with that variation. However, when we use these terms we usually mean:

• Telecare: from simple personal alarms (AKA pendant/panic/medical/social alarms, PERS, and so on) through to smart homes that focus on alerts for risk including, for example: falls; smoke; changes in daily activity patterns and 'wandering'. Telecare may also be used to confirm that someone is safe and to prompt them to take medication. The alert generates an appropriate response to the situation allowing someone to live more independently and confidently in their own home for longer.

• Telehealth: as in remote vital signs monitoring. Vital signs of patients with long term conditions are measured daily by devices at home and the data sent to a monitoring centre for response by a nurse or doctor if they fall outside predetermined norms. Telehealth has been shown to replace routine trips for check-ups; to speed interventions when health deteriorates, and to reduce stress by educating patients about their condition.

Telecare Aware's editors concentrate on what we perceive to be significant events and technological and other developments in telecare and telehealth. We make no apology for being independent and opinionated or for trying to be interesting rather than comprehensive.